Tim Leunig on Darlington is doing the HS2 problem of merging the fixing of multiple problems into a single project which massively increases the total figure to justify cancellation.
Yes there is a new station and car park but the reason for them are 1 - expensive improvements to straighten the tracks at Darlington, 2 removing (most) Teesside services from touching the ECML. That requires moving the station to the East which makes the old carpark useless.
So the station is then a relatively cheap change to facilitate line improvements. And the irony is that for me the service will deteriorate as if it is raining I will now have to stand in the rain to catch my train (they ran out of money so the new platforms don't have a roof all the way down the platform).
This isn't the point of your piece but as a digression it's hard not to feel like that abrupt turn at Elmers End to finish at Hayes was designed to skirt Croydon. It was under Johnson’s City Hall that those 2015 plans were published and there is more than a whiff of pork-barrel politics in avoiding a very Labour borough to stay in true-blue Bromley. I know nothing of civil engineering and presumably the geology makes this the only viable route. But you’ll forgive my conspiratorial leaning given that handbrake turn is so directly on the borough's boundary.
But then it’s good to see Labour Together work out from infrastructure logic rather than party politics. So long of course that we aren't accepting as settled transport logic something with a partisan flaw at its heart. Because unless construction in Croydon is impossible then why would you avoid the capital’s largest borough and home to one of the busiest rail interchanges in the country? Granted we are well connected above ground (albeit unfairly marooned in Zone 5), but if spending all that money on the Bakerloo extension is to handle both growth and balance it just seems odd not to include Croydon too.
Tim Leunig on Darlington is doing the HS2 problem of merging the fixing of multiple problems into a single project which massively increases the total figure to justify cancellation.
Yes there is a new station and car park but the reason for them are 1 - expensive improvements to straighten the tracks at Darlington, 2 removing (most) Teesside services from touching the ECML. That requires moving the station to the East which makes the old carpark useless.
So the station is then a relatively cheap change to facilitate line improvements. And the irony is that for me the service will deteriorate as if it is raining I will now have to stand in the rain to catch my train (they ran out of money so the new platforms don't have a roof all the way down the platform).
This isn't the point of your piece but as a digression it's hard not to feel like that abrupt turn at Elmers End to finish at Hayes was designed to skirt Croydon. It was under Johnson’s City Hall that those 2015 plans were published and there is more than a whiff of pork-barrel politics in avoiding a very Labour borough to stay in true-blue Bromley. I know nothing of civil engineering and presumably the geology makes this the only viable route. But you’ll forgive my conspiratorial leaning given that handbrake turn is so directly on the borough's boundary.
But then it’s good to see Labour Together work out from infrastructure logic rather than party politics. So long of course that we aren't accepting as settled transport logic something with a partisan flaw at its heart. Because unless construction in Croydon is impossible then why would you avoid the capital’s largest borough and home to one of the busiest rail interchanges in the country? Granted we are well connected above ground (albeit unfairly marooned in Zone 5), but if spending all that money on the Bakerloo extension is to handle both growth and balance it just seems odd not to include Croydon too.